Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Arts and Humanities Commons™

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion

None

Selected Works

2014

Articles 1 - 7 of 7

Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

Mikveh: The Relationship Of Jewish Ritual Immersion And Christian Baptism, Barry Fike Jul 2014

Mikveh: The Relationship Of Jewish Ritual Immersion And Christian Baptism, Barry Fike

Barry D. Fike

Most Christians understand baptism as an undeniable doctrine of early Christianity. What most don’t grasp is that this practice goes far beyond the confines of Jesus and John the Baptist to some of the earliest recorded stages of the people of God, meaning that it has always been a part of the plan of God for the redemption of mankind. In this book, Barry Fike goes back into the Hebrew background of the concept of Christian baptism into the Jewish understanding of this ritual of cleanliness to show that our present understanding needs to have some backdrop to correctly identify …

Go to article

Book Review: The Rivers Of Paradise: Moses, Buddha, Confucius, Jesus, And Muhammad As Religious Founders, David Freedman, Michael Mcclymond, Deborah Sommer Apr 2014

Book Review: The Rivers Of Paradise: Moses, Buddha, Confucius, Jesus, And Muhammad As Religious Founders, David Freedman, Michael Mcclymond, Deborah Sommer

Deborah A. Sommer

In his introduction to Rivers of Paradise, David Noel Freedman explains how the book finds a guiding metaphor in a passage from Genesis (2:10–14) that relates how a river emerges from Eden and splits into four different rivers that flow to different parts of the world. He associates these five rivers with five “great personality religions of the world,” which are traditions “originating in and centering around the person, the life and experience, of a single individual—as it happens all of them men” (p. 2). These “founding fathers” are Moses, the Buddha, Confucius, Jesus, and Muhammad, in that order; …

Go to article

Breaking Bad As Theological Text: A Process-Theological Reflection On Theodicy And Anthropodicy, Brent Hege Feb 2014

Breaking Bad As Theological Text: A Process-Theological Reflection On Theodicy And Anthropodicy, Brent Hege

Brent A. R. Hege

The recently-wrapped AMC megabit Breaking Bad (set and filmed in Albuquerque) has challenged viewers to reevaluate their assumptions about good and evil, freedom and determinism, and the possibility of redemption. Walter White, the protagonist and postmodern anti-hero, is a mild-mannered high school chemistry teacher and family man who is diagnosed with terminal cancer. To provide for his family after his death, he enters the crystal meth underworld, eventually securing for himself a vast underground empire and a new persona as "Heisenberg." Over the course of five seasons White makes a series of choices that implicate him in deception, betrayal, and …

Go to article

Abortion Before Marriage, Marriage Tribunal Jurisprudence And Moral Theology, Tom Ryan Dec 2013

Abortion Before Marriage, Marriage Tribunal Jurisprudence And Moral Theology, Tom Ryan

Tom Ryan

Perhaps the most neuralgic issue shaping the Catholic Church’s relationship
to wider contemporary society is abortion.  In Australia, the Church’s efforts to
counter abortion’s increasing incidence and after-effects are evident in Bishops’
statements,   websites   such   as Walking   with   Love, and, from   lay-inspired
movements such as the Rachel’s’ Vineyard Retreat.1
Further, research is bringing a   greater   appreciation   of   the   trauma   and   long-term   effects   of   the   abortion experience.      Given   that,   it   is   reasonable   to   assume   its   influence,   in   some
instances,   on   marital   consent.      Investigating   this   question,   then,   is   a   timely
exercise.  At the same time, it can provide an insight into a …

Go to article

Our Pathway To God: Drawn By Desire, Tom Ryan Dec 2013

Our Pathway To God: Drawn By Desire, Tom Ryan

Tom Ryan

IN 1942 AT OXFORD, in a sermon
The Weight of Glory,  CS Lewis began: ‘If you
asked twenty good men today what they
thought to be the highest of the virtues, nine-
teen of them would reply, Unselfishness’. He
went on to say that if they had asked the early
Christians, they would have replied, ‘Love’.

Go to article

An Introduction To Philosophy And Theology Within Catholic Liberal Education, Angus Brook Dec 2013

An Introduction To Philosophy And Theology Within Catholic Liberal Education, Angus Brook

Angus Brook

Readers  of  this  volume,  but  very  particularly,  our  students,  are  invited  to  engage  with  some  of  the 
pivotal ideas we work with in our Logos programme, the core curriculum of the Sydney campus of the
University of Notre Dame Australia, in which students and teachers converse about some of the most
fundamental ideas taken from the Western tradition of thought within philosophy and theology. In the
Logos classroom, students from every discipline within the university participate in lively discussions that
contribute to what we understand to be the mission of Notre Dame Australia as a Catholic university.
Namely, we educate …

Go to article

God Is His Own Interpreter, And He Will Make It Plain, Barry D. Fike Dec 2013

God Is His Own Interpreter, And He Will Make It Plain, Barry D. Fike

Barry D. Fike

Religion, in its mystical, emotional or practical expression is, to me at any rate, of little value if divorced from intellectual integrity. I think that the reason “many believers” are so repulsive is that they don’t really have faith but a kind of false security. They operate by the slide rule, and the Church for them is not the body of Christ but the poor man’s insurance system. It’s never hard for them to believe because actually they never think about it. Unfortunately the reality is simply that it is not easy to get vast masses of men to think …

Go to article